[Analysis of DNA aneuploidy as a tumor marker]

Cellular DNA content was determined by flow cytometry for 185 adult cases with various types of leukemia. DNA aneuploidies (DA) were detected in 50 of 185 patients (27%). Incidences of DA in subtypes of leukemia were as follows: 26% in acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), 17% in acute non-lymphocytic leukemia (ANLL), 28% in chronic myelocytic leukemia in blastic crisis (CML-BC), 6% in chronic lymphocytic leukemia and 55% in adult T-cell leukemia (ATL). Among subtypes, the incidence in ATL was significantly high (p less than 0.01), which suggested the special entity of this disease. No differences of incidence were found between male and female patients. DNA index (DI) ranged between 0.913 and 2.042, and the mean value was 1.144. Hypodiploid clones were detected in two cases (4%) and the rest of cases all showed hyperdiploid clones. Also only in two cases (4%), two abnormal DNA stemlines were detected, which suggested the low incidence of heterogeneous population in leukemic cells. In a few cases , whom we were able to follow up the clinical course, we could detect the early relapse in advance to morphological diagnosis and identify the "recruitment" of leukemic cells with the use of DA as a tumor marker. With regards to the prognosis of patients, DA was found to be useful as an unfavorable prognostic factor in ANLL (p less than 0.01) as well as in CML-BC (0.05). These data showed a clinical usefulness of flow cytometric analysis of DNA aneuploidy as a tumor marker. Moreover, based on our results, the usefulness of flow cytometric analysis of DA was discussed, with reference to current studies on leukemias and solid tumors.